Weekly WiT (9/20/17): Alicia Johnson, Accenture PLC

Woman in Tech of the Week (9/20/17)

Alicia Johnson, Managing Director, Accenture PLC

While some technology companies hope that outside forces will narrow the gender gap over time, others believe they can do it for themselves with hard numbers and stiff deadlines.

Women hold 25 percent of computing jobs, according to the National Center for Women & Technology. Despite this obvious gender gap, 58 percent of men and 46 percent of women in technology believe there are enough women in leadership roles, a survey from Comparably found. Perhaps they’d defend their company cultures as fair and argue reasonably that they can’t force women up the ladder to achieve parity. However, setting goals for greater female representation and measuring progress can make a difference, according to Alicia Johnson, managing director at Accenture PLC.

“We want a 50 percent women workforce by 2025,” Johnson said.

This is not just a private pact among a few elites within Accenture. The company has publicly announced its 50/50 by 2025 goal. It plans to achieve it by making a number of changes internally to hit specific targets. It will keep score on these initiatives with clear-cut metrics, and it will make those metrics publicly available. Accenture publishes its workforce demographics across many countries, including the USA Canada, South Africa, Japan and India.